Travis County Commissioners Court
Tuesday, June 22, 2010,
Item 17
>> 17 is to consider and take appropriate action on a request from the capital area quarter horse association for reduced fees to use the travis county exposition center show barn on june 26th, 2010 and august 7th, 2010. The little committee that we put together has not met yet. With mr. Norton's departure, there's a big question in my mind whether we ought to meet now or until the management of the expo center settles. Last time we talked with the association we told them we will continue the status quo until the committee had an opportunity to review the situation and decide whether to put in place new guidelines or not. And so in my view, that is still pending.
>> we have -- we have -- the thing that concerned me and it's -- i spoke with mr. Roger el khoury yesterday, i agree the committee that was put together has not yet met. We had several interested parties, capital area quarter horse, which is the one to which this agenda item is concerned, but there's also the arabian horse association, trinity hill, ms. Ranrow's group, several other livestock type of entities. I understood from mr. Roger el khoury that
>> [indiscernible] the county attorney's office is still working on the possible code updates because our code is far more restrictive than our practices are with regard to the expo center. My concern in looking at both 17 and 19 is that although these organizations are like -- are alike in that they are both non-profit, one goes to -- services for children, the boy scouts, and one goes to -- to -- to livestock and heritage i would -- that's the category that i would put it in. But one is a 40% discount, one is a 50% discount. Just putting it out there because we seem to be in another region of bartering on a case-by-case basis which i think is difficult on -- on the expo center staff as well as difficult on us. So -- so i only wanted to bring them up as -- as as a point of reference moving forward with our new executive who will be -- who will be selected to run the expo center, we really need a business plan for the expo center. One thing that i don't know about the -- about the quarter horse capital area quarter horse association is the fees associated with -- with participating in it. I looked at the fee structure online and couldn't tell what the fee structure was. The boy scout was asking for a deeply to steeply discount their own pass through costs with regard to the fees for boy scouts, but i don't know if the quarter horse association is doing the same or if it serves underprivileged ruth or anything like that. Or whether it's just a reduction in their costs. As an association.
>> my recollection is that we promised two things. A comprehensive review with the committee, which we have not done. And secondly that we would leave in place pretty much the terms and conditions that we have used historically until we had landed on whether or not to make changes. And when i looked at the request, my conclusion was one requested 50, the other requested 40, they have reasons for doing that. So -- so rather than fight them over the reasons, on the 40% i would say well, if we can get 10% more let's do it. If they get half the number of scouts that they plan for, you know, the backup says more than 10,000, there's -- that's a whole lot of young people to try to assist. The other thing they said was a lot of the parents and kids are from poor families and so the discount would help them. Provide scholarships and stuff like that, which is worthwhile and i think that we have supported historically.
>> and it's part of our overall county mandate, our own priority list for -- for our budget includes providing assistance both to individuals who are underprivileged children who are underprivileged and individuals who have -- who have fallen on hard times. So i totally agree with that. I'm just putting it out there that we really need a business plan to treat like organizations in a like way rather than doing this on a case by case barter.
>> well, the committee is not working on a business plan. But it did promise to work on -- to do a comprehensive review and come back with guidelines.
>> yes.
>> maybe one of the things that we will look at is non-profit status and exrktly what you do to support -- exactly what due to support some of the programs that we support as a governmental entity, which seems to me to be reasonable, plausible.
>> i think serving an underserved community should probably be a prerequisite to a steep discount.
>> right. Enlighten us, mr. Reeferseed.
>> just a brief comment on this issue. When i was a child, my member in -- in ymca india guide's program completely added to my life in many ways. I'm generally in support. But i also wanted to throw out this information that i just recently learned that the boy scouts are now being trained, they take this money and train boy scouts to disarm old people, to disarm citizens, disarm veterans. It's part of this crazy scheme to -- to hurt us as a culture. So i'm in favor of boy scouts generally, but if we can do anything to reduce this training to assault the american public through the boy scouts, i know that it sounds crazy, like other stuff that i was talking about. Sound absolutely crazy.
>> it doesn't sound crazy but irrelevant to item no. 17.
>> oh, okay, all right.
>> can you make that to the quarter horse association for us?
>> i thought that you were talking about the boy scouts, i'm sorry.
>> that was my fault. That was not germane to 17. So i, too, was talking out of turn.
>> oh, okay, all right, thanks.
>> we will take your comments and apply them to 17. We don't want you to work too hard today.
>> all right. Can i just make one question. I --
>> on 17?
>> i think that you misheard me on 21. I tried --
>> 17, i move approval.
>> second.
>> discussion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. Now we are at number 19, mr. Reeferseed.
>> thank you.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, June 22, 2010 1:35 PM
